JohnLocked
by NCISthemedname
Summary: Moriarty is dead. Sherlock Holmes has fallen to his death. John cannot go on without his flat mate. His colleague. His friend. But what happens in a stroke of luck after Sherlock is proclaimed dead?


"I will _burn_ the heart out of you," Moriarty said. But he wasn't talking to Sherlock. He was talking to the man he had just strapped to a bomb. He was talking to John. Moriarty continued to look past the gun pointed at his forehead to the man wielding it. Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective who ever lived and yet he would never figure this all out until it was too late. This small seed of fear would be planted in Sherlock's mind, not John's. The eye contact between the consulting detective and the consulting criminal would ensure that. He couldn't help as a few tears of maniacal joy leaked into his eyes. It only added to his sociopathic nature.

"I've been informed that I don't have one," Sherlock replied. No sense of fear was seen in his eyes. Moriarty slightly feared that this plan might not actually work. But what was he thinking? Of course it'd work. It would just need time.

"But we both know that's not quite true," Moriarty mocked. Sherlock flashed a moment of confusion. "Well," he shrugged, "I better be off. It was so nice to have had a proper chat."

"What if I was to shoot you? Right now?" Sherlock asked as he held the gun straighter in his hands.

"Well then you could cherish the look of surprise on my face." Moriarty made a mocking face of surprise. "'Cause I'd be surprised, Sherlock. I really would. And just a teensy bit – disappointed." He felt the tension rise as Sherlock contemplated his meaning. There was none yet but there would be. "You wouldn't be able to cherish it for very long. Ciao, Sherlock Holmes." _And Doctor John Watson. _

"Catch – you – later." Sherlock replied. Moriarty grinned.

"No you won't!"

The consulting criminal listened as the detective and the doctor threw away the bomb, as they joked about their sexuality rumours, and as John Watson sighed in relief. He heard Sherlock's abomination of gratitude blunder out of his mouth. So he decided to throw a scare in, just for fun.

"Sorry, boys! I'm sooooo changeable! It's a weakness with me. But to be fair to myself it is my _only_ weakness. You can't be allowed to continue. You just can't. I'd try to convince you but," he chuckled quietly, "everything has already crossed your mind." He watched the unspoken communication between the two men. The terse nods, the facial changes. They were willing to do whatever it takes to do what they could.

"And probably my answer has crossed yours." Sherlock spun around, gun in hand, and aimed it at Moriarty. He only smiled. Sherlock Holmes could not bear to kill the only real enemy, the only challenge he had. There would be no sport in that. Sherlock lowered the gun to the bomb. For a split moment, Moriarty believed that everything would actually be over. That Sherlock would fire. The bomb would explode. That every plan he had left to finish would go untouched. But then his saving grace: the incompetence of others.

His phone rang. The tension was cut down, replaced with an air of confusion and a bit of hilarity. Moriarty rolled his eyes in a mixture of relief and annoyance. Just when the moment was getting to be good.

"Do you mind if I get that?" Moriarty asked Sherlock.

"No, no, please," he said sarcastically, waving the gun in his hand as a reminder to where they were. "You've got the rest of your life." Moriarty pulled out his phone. _God, that woman_, he thought. Her report of failure angered him. He shouted. He threatened. Then he decided to leave.

"Sorry, wrong day to die."

"Oh, did you get a better offer?" Sherlock asked.

"You'll be hearing from me, Sherlock." He put the phone back up to his ear and continued to speak to her. He snapped. Sherlock and John were safe. For now.

Almost a year had passed since that meeting. Moriarty observed as John and Sherlock's friendship flourished. John's romantic relationships never lasted more than a month. Sherlock was only seen without John on difficult cases. Their bond was going to make this plan even more delicious. Even so, Moriarty speculated that the mention of his name would now strike fear into Sherlock, exactly as he planned. The video in the taxi had done some damage. He watched as assassin after assassin saved Sherlock's life. He watched as Sherlock chased down every lead. He savored the incalculable look on John and Sherlock's faces when he played the Richard Brooke card. He reveled in the fact that Sherlock's world was falling apart.

_Come play. St. Bart's roof. SH_. Moriarty grinned widely. He sent out a mass text: "Kill mode activated." He took a look around. This was the second time he had been inside Sherlock and John's flat although it was the first time he hadn't been invited. He took in the simplicity and the complexity. He absorbed the bullet holes and the smile painted on the wall. He saw the accumulation of dust on the counters but the pristine nature of the table. He took a short journey into Sherlock's room. The big bed which hardly looked slept in. The absence of anything sentimental or personal. The numerous suits in the closet. They were a lot alike, Moriarty and Sherlock. But it was the ordinary man who interested him more. The small cot like bed shoved into the corner. The open laptop with the blog still open. The articles of their adventures posted on the walls. The gifts given to Sherlock piled up on the desk with a note on top: _Give back to Sherlock_. Moriarty smiled. This game was just going to be too much fun.

_I'm waiting…JM_. Playing the taunting song as a form of mockery, Moriarty thought it was a fitting way to greet Sherlock's end. He taunted Sherlock. He told him his friends were in danger. The look of contemplation on Sherlock's face as he tried to think of more friends than John, it was priceless. Of course he didn't have more friends than John. But he had people who cared about him, that protected him. He, at minimum, valued their being. Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Molly. But John, John was the turning point for everything. He told Sherlock vaguely what would happen if he didn't jump. That Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, and John would all be shot. What he didn't say was they would be shot one by one, the rings of the guns loud enough for all of London to hear. So Sherlock could hear as each of them died because of him. And as he would be forced to watch as John would be killed six floors below in the middle of the street. But Moriarty knew that none of those people would be killed. The mention of John's name alone would force him to jump. His flat mate. His colleague. His friend. Sherlock took the bait. He stepped up onto the ledge, preparing to fall. Moriarty was teeming with excitement as he watched his plan start. But then it changed. Sherlock stepped down. He laughed. He thought he had figured it all out, that he knew a way out. Keep Moriarty alive. But only if he didn't kill himself. Moriarty whipped out the gun. He pulled the trigger and fell onto the ground. Blood pooling everywhere. Fear gripped Sherlock as he ran down plan after plan. There would be no time to try to save them individually. He wouldn't be able to get down off of the roof fast enough to save even one of them. Not alive anyway. Solemnly, he stepped back onto the ledge. He waited until the taxi stopped. He knew who was inside. Pulling out his phone, he hit speed dial number one. He watched as John answered.

_Hello?_

"John."

_Sherlock, you okay?_

"Turn around and walk back the way you came," he demanded.

_No, I'm coming in. _

"Just do as I ask! Please." Sherlock's voice broke. He was losing control. John stopped in the street for a second then turned back to where the taxi dropped him off.

_Where? _

"Stop there," he demanded. He had to see John's face. For some masochistic reason, he needed to see John's face as he fell. He needed John to see him fall. John was his only link, his only hope.

_Sherlock – _

"Ok, look up. I'm on the rooftop." John turned. His face, stricken with horror, broke Sherlock even more. But there was nothing he could do. This had to be done.

_Oh, God. _

"I-I can't come down so we'll just have to do it like this," he stammered.

_What's going on? _

Sherlock cringed. _I wish I could tell you, John. I wish I could tell you the truth. "_An apology. It's all true.

_What?_

"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty."

_Why are you saying this?_

"I'm a fake."

_Sherlock – _

"The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade. I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson and Molly," his voiced cracked as the tears flowed. The first tears he had shed in years and all for this. "In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes."

_Ok, Sherlock. Shut up. Shut up, Sherlock. The first time we met – the first time we met you knew all about my sister. _

"No one could be that clever," Sherlock lied. The gripping pain in his chest nearly suffocated him as he listened to John's voice break. Even from that distance, he could see the hurt, the excruciating pain that John was suffering. He had to create another lie, another reason for John to let him go, to lose faith. "I researched you. Before we met, I discovered everything I could to impress you. It was all just a trick. Just a magic trick."

_No, no. Alright, stop it now! _

"No, stay exactly where you are! Don't move!" he shouted. John backed up and put his hands in the air. Sherlock quickly thought it was a reflex from his army days.

_Alright._

"Keep your eyes fixed on _me_. Please, will you do this for me?" he begged.

_Do what?_

"This phone call, it's, um, it's my note. It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?" John shook his head.

_Leave a note when?_ He voiced cracked again. Sherlock could practically hear the tears over the phone. He had to keep himself composed enough to do this.

"Goodbye, John," he said simply. John protested. Sherlock threw the phone behind him, unable to listen to John's sweet voice. He heard John shout his name one last time as he fell. Then everything went black.

Two weeks later, John and Mrs. Hudson stood over Sherlock's grave. Mrs. Hudson felt an ample amount of grief for the tenant she had come to love. She breeched the subject of moving Sherlock's things or donating them. But it was still too soon for John.

His anger spilled over into every word he spoke nowadays. Even morning greetings were hard for him. He was constantly reminded of Sherlock in everything he did. After Sherlock's death, he moved in with his sister Harry for a time, too grief stricken to care about their bickering differences. He couldn't return to the flat, not yet. Sherlock's voice followed him everywhere. He heard him as he walked to the grocer. He listened as Sherlock spoke when John was supposed to listen to Harry talk about Clara. The voice taunted him but he reveled in the sweet misery. The voice he would never hear again brought him such pain and yet so much joy. John was afraid he would go mad but then he didn't care. What he cared about was dead.

"I'm angry," John admitted to Mrs. Hudson. She patted his arm.

"It's okay, John. There's nothing unusual about that. That's how he made everyone feel. Always the marks on my table and the noise. Firing guns off at one in the morning. Bloody specimens in my fridge. Imagine keeping bodies where there's food. And the fighting! Drove me up the wall with all his carryings on – " John couldn't take it. She didn't understand. She would never understand.

"Yeah, listen. I'm not actually that angry, ok?" She nodded.

"I'll leave you alone to, um – " she pointed vaguely at the tombstone, tears running down her face. She left him alone. John sighed in relief. There were things he needed to say to Sherlock, words that the brilliant man would never hear, ones his therapist wanted to know. But no one would hear these words. They were meant for no one but him. John awkwardly glanced at the tombstone.

"You – you told me once that you weren't a hero. Um, there were times that I didn't even think you were human but you were the best man and the most human – human being that I've ever met and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. So, there." He looked around for Mrs. Hudson. He could hardly see her as she continued to the road. He walked up to the stone and touched it. The smooth black marble was the closest he would ever get to his best friend again and it felt wrong. It burned his skin, his fingertips. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. Sherlock was not supposed to die like this. And John was not supposed to feel this way. "I was so alone and I owe you so much." John turned around to walk away. He suddenly stopped. "There's one more thing – one more thing – one more miracle, Sherlock. For me. Don't - be – dead." His voice cracked. The tears ran freely down his face. "Stop this. Stop being dead." He couldn't do it. He had to pull himself together. With a sharp jerk, he composed himself completely and saluted the memorial to his friend. Turning sharply, he walked away.

"Damn you, Sherlock. Just – God damn you!" John muttered.

"Now, now. That's no way to speak of the dead," Moriarty chortled, slinking out from behind a tree. John jumped. "Especially a dead one like Sherlock Holmes." John stood in shock for a moment before it quickly evolved into rage.

"Moriarty," he spat. His hands tightened into white balls. "You know, now that Sh – he's dead,, you don't have anyone to play your bloody mind games with." Moriarty laughed. It sent chills down John's spine. Moriarty suddenly became very frightening.

"Never!" Moriarty shouted. "I was NEVER playing with _him_! I was playing with you, my dear doctor. You and your ordinary mind. You did much better than I anticipated."

"Me?" John stuttered. "Why?"

"Do you remember that day at the pool when my boys strapped you into that pretty little bomb? And I told you I was going to burn the heart out of you?" Moriarty's teeth glistened as his lips spread widely over them into a menacing smile.

"No, you said that to Sh – him," John said, his voice slightly stronger, anger raging through him.

"No-ope. I said that to you. But you both believed it was for him. And that's what mattered! Besides," Moriarty's grin turned darker still. "you can't burn the heart out of a man who is already dead. But you, you are very much alive."

"As am I," a deep voice said behind him. A gun cocked as a tall dark figure stepped out, donned in his iconic black coat and purple scarf. He pointed the gun to the back of the consulting criminal's head.

"Sherlock," John whispered. Moriarty's troubled face turned to maniacal joy. He spun around quite quickly to face the gun and its holder head on.

"Sherlock! You've returned to us. Tell me, how did you do it?"

"Molly," Sherlock stated simply. "Jump at the right projection. Thick enough prosthetics paste and fake blood. Similar to what you used. Fake gun and fake blood positioned on the back of your head. Very clever. Make it look as real as possible to make me jump. To kill myself. Did you like the little show I put on for you? The panic. The rage. But I was one step ahead of you. I knew I was going to die. Only way out of your web. And I had to convince everyone else. But you, John, you were the hardest to trick. I had to make you watch. I had to make you see me die."

"But – but I identified your body at the morgue!" John spluttered.

"Paralytic. Stage makeup. Molly set it all up before I jumped. She helped me disguise myself as a corpse so you would think me dead. She attached the fake cuts and the skull fragment pieces to make it more real. I had to be dead long enough for Moriarty to reveal himself." Sherlock never took his eyes away from Moriarty's but all his words were for John. A sudden cackling made John aware that someone else was there. Moriarty was doubled over in laughter. What he was laughing at was a mystery to John.

"Well done, Sherlock. I must applaud you. Even I didn't see this coming. This does make it very interesting," Moriarty said. He turned slightly and began to walk around Sherlock in a circle. Sherlock turned with him, gun poised at Moriarty's temple. "So now how do the two greatest minds in the world kill each other? I mean, you can't kill me."

"And why not?" Sherlock asked. Moriarty slipped his hand into the back of his jacket.

"Because, I'll kill him." Pointed at John's head was his own service revolver. Sherlock was slightly perplexed on what to do but he kept his gun to Moriarty. "And you know I will."

"You weren't going to kill him before, what makes you think I know you'll kill him now?" Sherlock spat. Moriarty looked slightly surprised.

"You thought – you thought I wasn't going to kill him before?" He spat out one harsh laugh. "You still jumped! You still jumped and you thought I wasn't going to kill him?"

"You didn't have a gun on him. I knew how this would play out. I knew you wouldn't kill the three of them all at once. Where would my incentive be to jump if all of them were dead? No," Sherlock grinned darkly. "you were going to have them killed one by one. But it was only going to be Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. The third gun was on Molly, wasn't it? If I had heard those three shots, I would think they were all dead. But John, John was there, with me. I wouldn't have killed myself if he had died. And you knew it. My incentive for living would be gone but there would be no one left to save."

"S-save?" John stuttered.

Moriarty's joy turned to sudden anger. His hand tightened on the gun, his knuckles transparent. "No one left to save? NO ONE LEFT TO SAVE? Your brother. Your mother. Those urchins you call your underground police force."

"Mycroft is the one who tipped me off about your plan. He told me about how he had to talk to get you to cooperate. My brother and I may be very different but one thing we both can do is get information out of nothing. You told him everything he needed to know and he told me." Sherlock had grown enraged. His face had darkened to a menacing color. The gun in his hand did not shake but his other hand shook with such force that it was uncanny. "You planned to do all of this to see how far an ordinary man would go to save who he loved. You could have chosen any ordinary man but you chose John. Why?" Moriarty laughed. He looked in between the two men.

"It seems," he said, slowing his speech down slightly, "that he is not as ordinary as I thought. I applaud you, Doctor. I really do. But now, it seems, it is time for me to leave." He lifted the gun away from John and placed it in his pocket. Casually, he turned around and began to walk away.

"Where do you think you are off to, Moriarty?" Sherlock asked.

"I said it was time for me to leave. Weren't you listening, Sherlock? Besides, I have other plans to fulfill. Have fun while you can." With that, Moriarty broke out into a run, dodging graves and trees. Sherlock dropped the gun to chase after him but John stopped him. He grabbed his arm tightly. All the anger, all the pain, came rushing back as he looked at the man who refused to look him in the face. The pale eyes looking down at the ground, the dark curls shielding his face from John's gaze. John let go of his arm and stared at what he could see of Sherlock's face. They stayed there, motionless, for what felt like a lifetime. Sherlock looked up at John, asking for forgiveness when pain seared through his face. John grunted as his fist met Sherlock's cheek, cutting him almost exactly as last time. He watched as Sherlock hardly reacted and remembered Irene Adler's words.

_Oh, if I had to punch that face, I'd avoid your nose and teeth too._

As much as John wanted to punch Sherlock's nose back into his brain, to knock a few teeth out of his mouth, he knew he couldn't do it. He would never be able to inflict that kind of abuse onto this man. Sherlock dabbed at his cut, checking his fingers for blood.

"I understand, John. I really do. And I wish there was a way for me to apologize."

"Well, there isn't, Sherlock. There's not a bloody thing you can do. I-I-I had to move in with my sister. I couldn't go back to that bloody flat. I couldn't look at-at any of my things. I couldn't do anything. And you were alive, all this time." John spat out. Sherlock finally looked at John, his eyes glistening. John felt so much anger and so much rage but one look at Sherlock and it all bled away. His heart lifted at the sight. This time, he could not function for other reasons. Joy. Bliss. Happiness. Relief.

"I was wrong, John," Sherlock said simply.

"About what?" John tried to keep his voice curt but it failed.

"I once told you that caring was not an advantage. I told you that sentiment was a chemical defect on the losing side. I was wrong." He looked straight into John's eyes. Suddenly, with a leap, John jumped at Sherlock. He pressed his lips hard against his flat mate's. He expected to be rejected but didn't care. He was surprised when Sherlock pushed back and hugged John, gripping him so tightly he couldn't breathe. They fought for a moment, totally unaware to their surroundings. After a moment, John pulled away and looked into Sherlock's eyes.

"I love you too, Sherlock."


End file.
